"It is the quality of law enforcement that will bring crimes down."
"It is the quality of law enforcement that will bring crimes down."
The State of the Nation Address of President Duterte took a lot longer than originally planned. From about 45 minutes, the speech took an hour and 33 minutes and covered a lot of issues. This is because he did not follow the script this year. There were a lot of ad libs.
To many of us who watched and listened to his speech, he painted a somewhat depressing picture of the country. In his own words, he has seen the enemy and it is us—the Filipino. He seems to see the country as a place riddled with corruption and crime. The country I will admit could be a lot better but as it is, it is really not such a bad place as the President described it in his speech.
While the Philippine National Police continues to paint an improving peace and order situation because the crime rate continues to go down, it would seem that this is not enough to the President. He wants more to be done. His solution? Bring back the death penalty for heinous crimes related to illegal drugs and plunder which will surely reignite the debate on the death penalty. He admitted that the illegal drug trade continues to flourish and that corruption continues to be the main reason why poverty is still prevalent in the country.
Although President Duterte also spoke on other issues such as the West Philippine Sea, the ROTC, midnight national curfew and others, I will just dwell on the issue of death penalty. The appeal of the President to return the imposition of the death penalty will I am sure rekindle the debate on whether imposing the death penalty will deter the commission of crime. The death penalty is still imposed in the United States but a look at illegal drug statistics in that country shows that the illegal drug trade continues to grow. Furthermore, in this country, the death penalty is in fact already in effect considering that many drug suspects are already dying during the conduct of drug raids by the police and like in the US, the illegal drug trade is flourishing as the President himself has acknowledged. Admittedly, those suspects who are killed were not sentenced by a court of law. And if history will teach us anything, there was a time when all crimes in England was punishable by death but this did not stop crime.
What is clear is that the punishment imposed is not what brings crime down. It is the professionalism, support given, and efficiency of the law enforcement agencies that will bring crimes down. Perhaps the President should consider the issue of reforming law enforcement and the judicial process as an equally important step toward reducing crime. I understand that the President looks at crime fighting in a different prism compared to others. As they say, man is time- and culture-bound. In other words, man is a product of his time. And with President spending most of his public life in Mindanao, it is understandable why he looks at conflict resolution and other issues differently. But I agree with the President completely that corruption is directly correlated to crime.
But how can the government solve a problem like corruption which is imbedded in every nook and cranny of our government bureaucracy? Corruption has now apparently become part of the culture of doing business with government and therefore is now considered by many as acceptable. This makes it quite difficult to stop the practice. For instance, it has become normal and customary to give something when transacting business in some agencies in the government.
Another is our politics. To run for office, it is customary for a candidate to spend 20 times more than what that candidate will legally earn if he wins. Given that, is it any surprise if many elected officials will recoup their investments thru corruption? In Congress, the pork barrel is the principal piggy bank. This is the reason why even the President does not want to touch it.
In the Judiciary, we read sometimes about judges being fired or suspended due to corruption. Judicial proceedings have also become so expensive that it has become out of reach of ordinary citizens. This is also the reason why the drug lords who have so much money can get away with their crime. For local governments, there is the jueteng and other forms of illegal gambling like masiao that are good sources of extra income to support their life style.
Sometimes, some public officials do not try to hide what they are doing anymore and this is actually the scandal. All people who work in government especially those appointed in responsible positions are all exposed to the same temptations. Some I must say are able to maintain their perspective and are able to go through their careers with their integrity relatively intact. Many however, fall along the way because it is difficult to be a saint in a room full of people who are corrupt. With the kind of money that is going around, it is indeed difficult not to be somehow infected by the disease. Yet, there are still many in government who are able to do it and they are the heroes. The battle cry of the administration is that the best is still to come in the remaining three years. Let us all wait, hope and pray that President Duterte wins this lonely and very tough fight.
If in the end, he could indeed stop or reduce corruption significantly, then he will be considered as one of the most successful presidents of the country.